MR ARSENAL

Toni Alexander Adams (born 10 October 1966) is an English former player and manager. Adams played for Arsenal and England, captaining both teams. Known as "Mr. Arsenal", he spent his entire career of 19 years as a centre-back there, making 672 total appearances and winning four English league titles. He is considered one of Arsenal's greatest-ever players and is also included in the Football League 100 Legends.

When his playing career finished, Adams went into football management, spending periods in charge of Wycombe Wanderers, Portmouth, Azerbeijani side Gabala and Spanish side Genada.

From early in his career, Adams was an alcoholic. He was sentenced to four months in prison for driving while four times over the limit for blood alcohol, after crashing his car. From 1996 he recovered completely and became involved in helping sportspeople with drink, drug or gambling addictions by founding the Sporting Chance Clinic.

Born in Romford, Greater London, Adams grew up in Dagenham and was a pupil at Hunters Hall Primary School from 1971 to 1978 and then Eastbrook Comprehensive from 1978 to 1983. After beginning as an apprentice at Crystal Palace, he signed for Manchester City in 1979 for £250,000, then a record for a teenager. (belowTony in 2017)

Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1983–2002	Arsenal	504	(32)
International career
1983–1984	England U17	13	(5)
1985	England Youth	1	(0)
1985–1986	England U21	5	(1)
1989-1990	England B	4	(1)
1987–2000	England	66	(5)
Managerial career
2003–2004	Wycombe Wanderers
2008–2009	Portsmouth
2010–2011	Gabala
2017	Granada
* Club domestic league appearances and goals

8th of the 10th FOOTBALLERS: A CELEBRATION!!

Born 8th October: 1922 Nils Liedholm. Elegant Swedish midfield playmaker, a legend for twelve years at Milan from 1949-61. As a manager he's best known for his time at Roma, guiding them to their 2nd Scudetto in 1983.

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AND 8th October: 1928 Didi. Fantastic Brazilian midfielder/inside-forward who was part of two World Cup winning teams, 1958 and 1962. Renowned for his fantastic passing and technique, his main clubs were Fluminese and Botafogo, but he also had a short spell with Real Madrid.

MORE 8th October 1934 Gerry Hitchens. He may not be the best known British export to Italy in the 60s, but he certainly did better than most. A great scoring record with Cardiff City and Aston Villa before Inter bought him in 1961. He spent eight years in Italy with Inter, Torino, Atalanta and Cagliari. He also became the first Englishman to represent his country while on the books of a foreign club.

8th October 1950 Miguel Ángel Brindisi. Argentine attacking midfielder Miguel Ángel Brindisi was born #OnThisDay in 1950. He was a key part of César Menotti's legendary Huracán side of the 1970s and also formed a great partnership with Diego Maradona at Boca Juniors in the early 80s.

8th October 1957 Antonio Cabrini. Legendary left-back for Juventus and a World Cup winner in 1982 with Italy. He's one of only nine players to have won all 3 European club trophies - European Cup, UEFA Cup, UEFA Cup Winners Cup (the nine players were: Cabrini, Scirea, Tardelli, Brio, Tacconi, Gianluca Vialli, Baia, Blind and Muhren).

8th October 1960 Ralph Minge. Dynamo Dresden legend who caused many a snigger in the schoolyard and probably was able to put up some disgraceful banter. I wouldn't take the micky!!

DUNDEE BORN IN DURBAN ends in Durban!

Born in Durban, Sean Dundee (NOTE...NOT THE PLACE!!) began his football career in South Africa with local teams Bayview Durban and D'Alberton Callies, Durban, before moving to Germany and Stuttgarter Kickers in 1992. After spending the 1994–95 season with TFS Ditzingan he signed with Bundislega team Karlsruher SC. Developing to become one of the ace goalscorers in the German league, he scored 16 goals in 1995–96 and 17 goals in 1996–97. He scored 61 goals in 162 Bundesliga games.

In July 1998, he joined Premier League club Liverpool for £2 million, as joint managers Gerard Houllier and Roy Evans needed an extra striker to cover for the injured Robbie Fowler, who was unavailable until the winter. However, Dundee failed to break up the partnership of Karl-Heinz Riedle and Michael Owen during the first quarter of the season, and when Fowler returned from injury his chances of first team action were looking even more remote. He only played three games in the league for Liverpool (all of them as a substitute during the final weeks of the campaign as their bid for a UEFA Cup place slipped away) and after the end of the season he returned to Germany in a £1 million move to VfB Stuttgart.

Still struggling to regain his old form, he moved to Austrian team Austrai Wien in 2003. He failed to score in 18 games before returning to KSC in 2004. For the season 2006–07 he signed a two-year contract with Kickers Offenbach. Before finishing the contract he moved back to Stuttgarter Kickers in January 2007.

After leaving his German club he signed for AmaZulu in his native Durban on 17 August 2008.

Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1992–1994	Stuttgarter Kickers	7	(0)
1994–1995	TSF Ditzingen	34	(24)
1995–1998	Karlsruher SC	85	(36)
1998–1999	Liverpool	3	(0)
1999–2003	VfB Stuttgart	77	(25)
2003–2004	Austria Wien	18	(0)
2004–2006	Karlsruher SC	52	(14)
2006–2008	Kickers Offenbach	15	(0)
2007	→ Stuttgarter Kickers (loan)	5	(1)
2008–2009	AmaZulu	4	(0)
Total		300	(100)
International career
2000	Germany B	1	(1)
* Club domestic league appearances and goals

Dundee went as far as switching nationality to Germany, but was however never used by the national team, although he did manage a solitary appearance at "B" level, scoring once against Russia!

On 13 November 2013, he returned to Germany to join amateur club VSV Büchig in the Kreisliga. He played there until the end of the 2015–16 season. Dundee became an analyst/co-commentator for the Bundesliga world feed beginning with the 2017–18 season.

YES! 25 YEARS AGO

 6th October 2001

David Beckham became a national villain when he was sent off against Argentina in the match that saw England eliminated from the 1998 World Cup but all that was finally forgiven on this day in 2001. 

Going into their final qualifier for the 2002 World Cup finals England were level on points with Germany but had a better goal difference thanks to that famous 5-1 victory in Germany. So England needed to at least match Germany's result to automatically qualify - England were at home to Greece and Germany were at home to Finland. Germany's match ended before England's - Germany drawing with Finland. So England needed to at least draw with Greece to automatically qualify but sadly the match didn't go to script and in the 93rd minute Greece were leading 2-1.  But then England got a free kick. From around 30 yards on his home pitch - Old Trafford - David Beckham fired in a perfect free kick which hit the back of the net. A 2-2 draw, Beckham a national hero, England qualified for the finals automatically and Germany finished second and went to the play-offs. Was it a dream?

SQUAD!

• 1 Seaman
• 2 Mills
• 3 A. Cole
• 4 Sinclair
• 5 Ferdinand
• 6 Campbell
• 7 Beckham (c)
• 8 Scholes
• 9 Fowler
• 10 Owen
• 11 Heskey
• 12 Brown
• 13 Martyn
• 14 Bridge
• 15 Keown
• 16 Southgate
• 17 Sheringham
• 18 Hargreaves
• 19 J. Cole
• 20 Vassell
• 21 Butt
• 22 James
• 23 Dyer 
• Coach: Eriksson
  Remember these?

The 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification UEFA Group 9 was England's group comprising Albania, Finland, Germany and Greece.

The group was won by England, who qualified for the 2002 FIFA World Cup. The runners-up, Germany entered the UEFA Qualification Playoffs.!! AND who would later reach the final of the tournament proper!! 

England started the qualification process badly, a home defeat to Germany and an away draw with Finland (soon after a poor team performance at the 2000 European Championships) saw the resignation of their manager Kevin Keegan, and the appointment of Sven-Göran Eriksson – the first non-Englishman to be given the job – in his place. 

With the new manager, they picked themselves up and won five in a row, while the Germans themselves unexpectedly faltered: also drawing with Finland away from home, they also lost their home match with England by a resounding 5–1. Finland, in fact, might have been in with a chance of qualification themselves, but they lost a match to the unfancied Greece, whom England had to play in their final match, while Finland played Germany at the same time, with England and Germany guaranteed the top two places and separated only by goal difference. Greece unexpectedly took the lead twice at Old Trafford, but England captain David Beckham scored an injury-time free kick to level the game. Germany could only manage a 0–0 draw against Finland, meaning England topped the group on goal difference!!
Apologies for crazy table below...you can work them out!

Standings

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	England	8	5	2	1	16	6	+10	17	Qualification to 2002 FIFA World Cup		—	0–1	2–1	2–2	2–0
2	Germany	8	5	2	1	14	10	+4	17	Advance to UEFA play-offs		1–5	—	0–0	2–0	2–1
3	Finland	8	3	3	2	12	7	+5	12			0–0	2–2	—	5–1	2–1
4	Greece	8	2	1	5	7	17	−10	7			0–2	2–4	1–0	—	1–0
5	Albania	8	1	0	7	5	14	−9	3			1–3	0–2	0–2	2–0	—

JOCK STEIN

On this day in 1922, one of the greats in British football came into the World, Jock Stein was born. You will find a number of references to Jock on this Blog. The legendry Scottish manager grew up playing the game at weekends when he was not working  in a local carpet shop and down the pit during the week. He started his managerial career at Dumfermline and went on to make his name at Glasgow Celtic, serving them for 13 years as manager. He picked up 11 Scottish League titles, 10 Scottish Cups, 5 Scottish League Cups and famously the 1967 European Cup...look it up to see where this trophy ranks amongst present awards!

Full name	John Stein
Date of birth	5 October 1922
Place of birth	Hamilton, Lanarkshire, Scotland
Date of death	10 September 1985 (aged 62)
Place of death	Cardiff, Wales
Position	Centre-back

Stein was the first man to lead a British team to European glory and he did this remarkably with a team in which every player was born within 30 miles of the Scottish city of Glasgow!! 

Stein worked as a coal-miner while playing football by part-time for Blantyre Victoria and then Albion Rovers. He became a full-time professional football player with Welsh club Llanelli Town, but returned to Scotland with Celtic in 1951. He enjoyed some success with Celtic, winning the Coronation Cup in 1953 and a Scottish League Cup and Scottish Cup double in 1954. Ankle injuries forced Stein to retire from playing football in 1957.

Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1940–1942	Blantyre Victoria
1942–1950	Albion Rovers	236	(9)
1950–1951	Llanelli Town	44	(5)
1951–1957	Celtic	106	(2)
Total		365	(13)
International career
1954	Scottish League	1	(0)
Managerial career
1960–1964	Dunfermline Athletic
1964–1965	Hibernian
1965	Scotland
1965–1978	Celtic
1978	Leeds United
1978–1985	Scotland
* Club domestic league appearances and goals